Where Have You Been? (27 page)

His house is one in a row of almost identical Victorian terraces – all in various stages of disrepair. She pushes through a rusty wrought-iron gate at the front of number 134 and feels her way up a flight of sandstone steps. There's no doorbell and she has to rap hard on the heavy wooden door. There's a light, visible through a front window, but no movement from within. Just as she's about to bang on the door again, harder this time, using a closed fist, the door opens. A firm hand interrupts the downward trajectory of her own.

‘Susan!' Howard says, the surprise evident in his expression, his voice. ‘What on earth are you doing here?'

‘I'm lost.' Susan smiles weakly. ‘I thought you might be able to tell me where I am.'

Howard's terrace is obviously in the process of being renovated. All the downstairs walls have been knocked down, and the staircase to the upper level appears to have been partially dismantled – terminating abruptly at the first landing. There's a sink and an old upright stove in one
corner, a futon in another, but no evidence of any bathroom facilities. Little mountains of rubble adorn every corner and an inch-thick layer of grey dust covers everything; what little furniture there is is draped in sheets for protection.

Howard offers her a seat on the futon, pours her a whisky and pulls up a dusty packing case for himself. He politely refrains from asking, but Susan tells him that she'd come here intending to look for Carly, thinking she may have gone back to the hotel she'd originally stayed at, the Capital. She tells him about the children's revised account of Stella's accident – though it seems so trivial now, so lame in the telling, in the aftermath – about the fight, about Carly's departure. Susan plays the whole thing down, it was just a misunderstanding, a minor spat, she says. A sister thing. She feels she should offer some sort of explanation, after all, she doesn't want him to imagine that she's purposely driven here to see him, that her story about Carly is some sort of a pretext, though she thinks perhaps he does, anyway.

‘Anyway, I'm hopeless – I'm nowhere near the Capital, am I? I was going to head back and start again, but I got a bit muddled – and I can't quite remember where I left my car. And when I saw Brougham Street I thought of you. I thought you might help me get my bearings. Anyway, I don't really know what I thought I could do – the whole thing was silly, really. Impulsive. But I guess I wanted to see if we could sort things out. Patch things up.'

There's no possible way to patch things up, she knows that. But Howard doesn't – she hasn't told him about Carly's terrible rage, her parting revelation.

‘But what made you think she'd be at the Capital, Susan? She could be anywhere.'

He shakes his head disbelievingly from side to side, his lips pursed in such a very lawyerly way that Susan can't help laughing.

‘What? What's funny?'

‘It's nothing.'

Suddenly everything looks slightly surreal, upside down. ‘It's Carly. Everything. Nothing fits. Being here, now ... Your house...'

Even Howard is not who he ought to be. Nor she. They are both being so circumspect, so polite, like children playing at being grown-up, desperately pretending that their professional relationship is intact. ‘It's all crazy.' Susan giggles, sips her whisky.

‘I'm not sure I get you.' Howard's smiling now, but warily.

‘No, it's okay. There's nothing to get.' She stands up, still giggling. ‘Well, I'd better get home, Ed'll be wondering where I've got to.'

‘You're sure you're alright?' Howard stands too, takes the empty glass Susan proffers.

‘I'm fine,' she says, not feeling fine at all. ‘Thank you,' brightly. ‘You've been terribly ... terribly solicitous.'

She isn't giggling anymore, but crying, and Hamilton offers her a handkerchief, another drink, the slight comforting pressure of his warm hand on her shoulder.

And then, she doesn't know how, can't recall the precise sequence of events (then or later), Susan finds herself lying prone on the futon, being kissed. Or perhaps it's Susan that's doing the kissing. She can't be sure.

Tonight, though Ed is tired, he sits on the edge of their bed, waiting for Susan's return. He has managed to feed and bed the children – though both were quite distressed by their mother's inexplicable absence, and – although he couldn't quite face the potato encrusted benchtop – he has
even stacked the dishwasher, scrubbed the pots. He has done the crossword on his own (but needs Susan's help with seven down), has showered and cleaned his teeth. He is ready for sleep, but sleep won't come.

Over the years Ed has watched various friends' marriages break down, has counselled, leant a willing ear, given advice. It has always seemed to him, watching objectively (though not, he hopes, judgementally) from the sidelines, that many of these relationships have foundered not through any great rancorous disagreement, or unforgivable betrayal, nor because of any discernible personality change in either of the partners (these being the most common explanations, and excuses), but through a simple lack of trying. A lack of will. A successful marriage, Ed maintains (has always maintained) is based not upon romance or similar interests or whatever drew a couple together in the first instance, but on a conscious decision to settle for what it is you've got, to not yearn after other people, other lives, other things. To admit the impossibility of having everything and to be content, happy (insofar as happiness actually exists other than as a memory or an ideal – which he's not so sure about) with your lot.

Now, as a not-so-objective participant in what he can't avoid recognising as his own impending relationship breakdown, his own test of will, Ed can see that it's far more complicated than that. That it's not so much to do with trying (and he is trying), that trying achieves very little. Now all his theorising seems laughable, inadequate, incredibly naive. The smug pronouncements of the complacent. This isn't about will, he realises now, will counts for nothing here. He's willed none of this. It's inescapable, and he's without volition.

The only thing he can liken the experience to – and he knows it's a laughably cliched analogy, tired and trite – is being picked up and swept along by a current. Ed feels he's
done his level best to swim across the flow, but that's just not working – any attempt to escape is wearying beyond belief and, anyway, impossible. He thinks perhaps the only way to survive is to stop resisting, to let the tide pull him out. And if he can somehow survive the journey, the voyage (and he knows he might be taken miles and miles offshore, he might end up somewhere unrecognisable, another continent, a desert island; he might even be eaten by sharks en route), if he can just stay afloat, he might preserve some small bit of his strength.

And that way he just might make the long swim back.

Susan wakes with difficulty, her head thick, eyes sticky. The room is full of sunshine, the space beside her – well, there is no space beside her, she's not in her own bed. She's in Carly's room, Stella's old room – is lying, fully clothed, but uncovered, on top of Carly's single bed. She doesn't know, can't remember, why it is that she's there, why she hasn't slept in her own bed, why she's still in bed at this hour. What hour? A glance at the bedside clock tells her that it's late, past ten, and she panics – Stella, Mitchell, school! – goes to get up, but can't – her stomach lurches, head spins.

She lies back gingerly and closes her eyes again. She tries to remember what day it is, but can't; hopes that it's Saturday, but doubts it somehow. Her stomach's churning, but her mind is churning even more violently. She can't remember why she's here, what she's done – and isn't at all sure that she wants to.

By the time the phone call comes, she's just begun to feel human. She's showered, dressed, drunk copious cups of black
coffee (and vomited them back up again), has ascertained (from a scrawled note on the kitchen table) that Ed has taken the children to school. She's even managed to dredge up her memories of the night before – most of them anyway. Susan's certain that she left Howard's terrace with her marriage vows – if not her dignity – intact. Certain that she drove home without mishap, despite having drunk somewhat more than the legally prescribed quantity of liquor.

She can distinctly recall opening a bottle of champagne on her return, less distinct are her memories of the drink itself. She has a dim recollection of rummaging through the photograph box, of weeping over this and that family snap, of reading through the articles relating to her missing sister, again, of opening an envelope, trying to focus on some dull documents, of giving up, of pouring more champagne ... After that – a blank. She's satisfied, though, that she, at least, has done nothing that requires forgiveness, nothing she need ever apologise for, nothing that will endanger the future happiness of their little family. She's beginning to fill with a righteous anger – feels swollen with the weight, the magnitude – leaving no room for the inevitable sorrow; the despair that she knows will follow hard and fast. She's ready, primed for action, for confrontation, and when the telephone rings, she hopes that it's Ed.

But it's Howard's secretary calling to tell her that the settlement has gone through as planned – it was a two week settlement rather than the usual six – and that the funds have been deposited into a trust account. ‘Less agents' fees and the solicitor's – your share is four hundred and fourteen thousand dollars, Mrs Middleton.'

The woman gives her the figure with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm, obviously impressed and, despite her pounding head, Susan manages to make the appropriate noises. ‘The money's ready for disbursement, and we don't seem to have
instructions for transferring your share of the funds. Do you want a cheque, or do you want your portion of the money deposited directly into an account?'

Susan rattles off her account details, realises she has made a mistake, then, picturing the secretary's bored disdain, can't remember, has to make several attempts before she gets it right.

‘What about my sister's funds – what about her details?' She tries hard to make the question seem spontaneous, the sort of question anybody might ask – idle, inconsequential – but Susan is flustered, she's breathless, she knows she sounds nervous, even guilty. And the secretary's reply is icy:

‘Miss Brown has made her arrangements with us, Mrs Middleton. I'm sorry, but I can't give you any information. You'll have to ask her yourself.'

Susan phones Ed.

‘Susan. You're awake. Is everything alright?'

Susan has lost the urge to discuss their situation, to confront him with her knowledge. She's too tired, her head's begun to pound again – the whole thing's too hard.

‘Everything's fine, Ed.' She tells him about the secretary's call.

‘Wow.' He sounds vague, distracted. ‘We're rich.'

She tells him that she has to take Stella to the orthopaedic surgeon at lunchtime and then she has some shopping to do, errands to run, they'll be home too late home to cook, could he organise takeaway, buy champagne? ‘Good champagne,' she adds, ‘we can afford it.'

‘I guess we can. Do you need me to get Mitch from school? Will you be back in time?'

‘Mitch is going to after-school care. I've booked him in for the afternoon. He wants to go. I'll pick him up on the way home.'

‘Oh. Sure.'

A long pause, then: ‘Is she back? Is Carly back?'

‘No.'

‘Have you heard from her?'

‘No, Ed, I haven't.' Then casually, without emphasis: ‘Have you?'

She is flicking impatiently through an old newspaper in the surgeon's waiting room when she comes across the story.
Missing Teenagers,
the headline announces,
Murder Victims or Runaways? The Anguish of Uncertainty.

Every year,
she reads,
hundreds of Australian teenagers disappear, most of whom leave of their own free will and return or are returned to their families within days or weeks. Others never come home and police files remain open indefinitely. Unless evidence of foul play can be proven or a body is found, these young people remain in an official and personal no-man's-land. For their families the uncertainty is agonising – and for some it will never end. Recently a taskforce investigating a number of disappearances of young women from Sydney's inner west between March 1975 and May 1976 – a series of disappearances investigators initially feared was serially linked – has come to the conclusion that at least two of the missing girls left of their own accord and that these cases can now be officially closed.

The families of Jane Harkness, who disappeared from Leichhardt in April 1975, soon after her 17th birthday and Carleen Potter, aged 18, who disappeared from Marrickville, in March 1976 – were recently informed that NSW police had good reason to believe that their daughters are both alive and well. For these families the knowledge of their daughters' safety has given some relief. Mrs Enid Harkness, mother of Jane, stated today that she had always feared the worst and that just knowing that Jane was alive somewhere was enough. Gerald Potter, father of Carleen, and her only remaining parent, now
terminally ill with lung cancer, expressed his great relief, but added, ‘If you're reading this Carl, how 'bout you get in contact with your Dad. I'm not going to last long. Let me die knowing you're safe and happy. Let's put the past to rest, love.'

Inspector Dal Whitehouse, who heads the taskforce, emphasises Mr Potter's sentiment: ‘Let me make it clear that it's not a crime to disappear – there are often legitimate reasons for leaving – but there's no harm in dropping a line or making a quick phone call, just to say you're safe. It would save a great deal of heartache and worry. Not to mention paperwork.'